World History: Environmental Changes
Name:
Date:
1. If the idea that humans modified nature in ways that were deleterious to it, when, if ever, was it all right to modify the physical
environment? For example, was it all right to dam the Nile River to keep water from flooding out homes and crops and to irrigate
underwatered crops?
2. Can you think of examples where national pride was more important than protection or nurturing of the environment?
3. What conveniences or labor-saving innovations in this period should people have done without, for example, cars or refrigerators,
to avoid environmental degradation? Could their use have been limited? How?
Note: In the period under study, the deleterious environmental effects of fossil fuel use on the atmosphere, of irrigation and damming on
land erosion, and of chemical fertilizer use on the soil and ground water, were largely unknown.
Instructions: Draw an illustration to depict each theory of human-nature relationship below.
Humanity in harmony with nature: Think
about a Taoist sitting in his garden
meditating. He hears a gentle waterfall
gurgle over pebbles. A bird chirps in rhythm
with the Taoist’s heartbeat, a breeze brushes
a wisp of hair from his forehead, and the
fragrance of lilies pleases his nose. The
Taoist gets up and strolls through his garden
noticing a fallen tree limb. He picks it up
and sets it on a rock in order to meditate
later on its gnarled nodes.
Humanity as determined by nature: Ancient
Greek philosophers taught that humans were
composed of the same elements as the
planet: earth, wind, fire, and water, and that
balancing these led to physical health.
Seventeenth-century American ministers
suggested that New England’s earthquakes
were the manifestations of society’s sins.
Some Native American children are named
for an environmental phenomenon, like a
lunar eclipse or thunderstorm, that occurred
during their birth and that is expected to
affect their character as they grow up.
Humanity as a modifier of nature: In
Genesis, the first book of the Bible, God
made humans to be the custodians of the
natural world, an idea found throughout
Jewish theology. Karl Marx suggested that
“nature exists to be harnessed by labor.”
China’s Three Gorges dam is touted by its
government as the triumph of humans over
nature.